


when the love of your life leaves you

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Series: we're building a place where we can be free [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Returns, Captain America - Freeform, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers Feels, Stucky - Freeform, author is really fucking proud of this piece, i have so many feels right now, stucky poetry, stucky prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 01:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6032992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the love of your life comes back to you, remember what Kafka said about the lost returning in another form - touch him to be sure.</p><p>Make him your fistfight, your dragonfly with teeth marks at the base of his neck because my god you've never loved anything like you love him, make the bullet a man - the man a sculpture of brass and show him how electric feels when it conducts against skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the love of your life leaves you

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [when the love of your life leaves you](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/176770) by andrea gibson. 



> "Every thing that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form."  
> Franz Kafka

When the love of your life walks away and your feet are aching from pounding hot pavement like it might actually lead you to the promise land, stop.

Remember to breathe, let your lungs fill up with everything you should've told him but never did - let them. Exhale the love that brought you to this point and remind yourself that the body needs the heart in order to stay alive.

Recall the thin white thread that your mother used to mend holes in your trousers and sew socks that were better suited as dish rags - this fragile line is what tethers you to him and it would be so easy to break, be gentle in your steps and deliberate in your actions.

Don't run, don't you dare run.

*****

When he's a shadow leaning up against a phone booth that hasn't worked since 2002, do not try to stitch his darkness into yours - it will only unravel under the weight of your fingers. Recall how your mother once called you sunshine - _my baby sunshine, my sweet baby sunshine -_ you can turn your rays into a sunset or you can become the force that sees his darkness and shines too brightly - not everyone can handle how strongly you love. 

Step back and make out the shapes of his features - when he walks away do not follow.

*****

When the love of your life is no longer in your line of sight and there is blood in a space he once occupied, do not get a mop. Do not assume he has lost the war, do not paint a mural with grief - it is not his blood.

Don't stop searching.

*****

When a blocked number that you do not recognize calls only to hang up at the sound of your voice, do not change the pitch or tone. Do not turn yourself into a vulture picking at its own corpse with heart still beating, love is painful but it has not killed you yet.

Put the phone down, take a breath and make a cup of his favorite tea. Pretend that teacups are his lips and you are only taking samples. 

Understand that the mere sound of your breathing on the other end is the lifeline that keeps him.

*****

When they call him a vigilante tell them that he is only doing what he sees as the only viable option. When the law turns against the very bullet that helped the country that you love win a war that you were not around to see, do not spit it back at them.

Cradle it in your hands like a newborn baby and show them that every bullet has a scar that it never asked for and he is not a weapon.

*****

When your dreams become oceans that you cannot swim your way out of, float. Let the water swirl around you like a cauldron and know that a person cannot sleep forever and dreams are only make believe.

When you wake, take a hot shower and note that there is always a nozzle that stops the water from drowning you.

He will be that for you but not yet.

Not yet.

*****

When Spring returns with his favorite flowers and buildings that are too tall for you to leap over, look for him. Walk softly like a deer in the forest with sunshine in your blood and every breath that sounds like the whisper of his name.

Pick him flowers and put them in a damaged vase because you're not perfect - you are cracked in all of the right places and this is how you show love.

If his fingers hold it too tightly, recall that even broken glass looks beautiful when it falls and you could not catch him the first time. Try to forget.

Fill the sink with tap water and hold his hand while it washes away all the things he never agreed to do but did anyway.

Understand that water takes on the shape of its vessel and he is 75% water, hold him.

Do not be afraid.

*****

When the love of your life comes back to you, remember what Kafka [said](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/may-benatar-phd-lcsw/kafka-and-the-doll_b_981348.html) about love returning in a different form - touch him to be sure.

Make him your fistfight, your dragonfly with teeth marks at the base of his neck because my god you've never loved anything like you love him, make the bullet a man - the man a sculpture of brass and show him how electric feels when it conducts against skin. 

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: the male dragonfly mates by biting the base of a female dragonfly  
> another fun fact: brass makes an excellent conductor of electric  
> 


End file.
